Esmin Green Death
On June 19, 2008, Esmin Green, a 49-year old native of Jamaica, died in the waiting room of the hospital's G Building, a psychiatric ward. Videotape shows Hospital Police officers and even a doctor walking through the camera view without doing anything to help the woman, who was prone on the floor. In addition, records were falsified, stating her status at times which the time-stamped video prove false, even going so far as to giving reports about her status after she was apparently dead. Several people were fired in the immediate aftermath, and investigations and lawsuits are pending. This incident came in the midst of a federal lawsuit charging neglect by the hospital.
She had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, falling face down on the floor. She was dead by 6:35, when someone on the medical staff, flagged down by a person in the waiting room, finally approached, nudged Green with her foot, and gently prodded her shoulder, as if to wake her. The staffer then left and returned with someone wearing a white lab coat who examined her and summoned help.
Until the staffer's appearance, Green's collapse barely caused a ripple. Hospital Police officers and a member of the hospital's staff appeared to notice her prone body at least three times, but made no visible attempt to see if she needed help. One Hospital Police officer didn't even leave his chair, rolling it around a corner to stare at the body, then rolling away a few moments later.
Green's medical records raised the possibility that someone might have tried to cover up the circumstances of the death. One notation said that at 6 a.m., she was "awake, up and about" and had just used the restroom. Another said that at 6:20 a.m., she was sitting quietly in the waiting room, and had a normal blood pressure. During both of those times, Green was either in her death throes or already dead.
Read more about this topic: Kings County Hospital Center
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